16.5.13

The Food In Laos

This is a guest post
written by Adam (@PergiDulu) one half of a travelling couple who blog at PergiDulu and Baca Resep Dulu

The first guest post on my blog comes from my favourite travelling couple Adam (Australian) and Susan (Indonesian). I've been following their blog since long time ago because they post great stuff. Please follow their twitter (@Pergidulu) and their blog PergiDulu to get interesting updates. This is a delicious post about the food in Laos. Do not read this post on an empty stomach :p

It’s no secret that we love food, so one of the things we do
when we travel is try to taste as many of the local foods as possible. But we
don’t just eat local food. We like to try all different types of food, just so
long as it’s good.

amazing noddle soup

In Laos, local food is available everywhere at any time of
the day. The main dishes are things like noodle soup, BBQed meat, fried rice
and sticky rice. Normal fluffy white rice that you find in the rest of Asia
isn’t a

available as often.

meat and fluffy white rice

sticky rice drenched in coconut milk

If you really want to learn about Lao food when in Laos, the
best way is to take a cooking class and one of the best cooking classes in the
country is located in LuangPrabang and is called Tamarind.
At Tamarind, you get to prepare a range of local dishes in a clean environment.
We had the opportunity to prepare a couple of jeows (dips), a fragrant stick of lemongrass stuffed with minced
chicken, fish in banana leaf, the famous Lao dish laap and black sticky rice with coconut milk, similar to ketan
hitam in Indonesia.

Chicken stuffed lemongrass

black sticky rice

Aside from all of this local food, in towns such as Luang
Prabang and Vientiane there are a lot of other styles of food which are
delicious. Because of the French influence in Laos, you tend to get fantastic
bread and pastries. We also indulged in some fantastic croque monsieurs,
croissants and tarts. Mmm….

delicious pastries in Luang Prabang

lemon tart in Luang Prabang

But what else is there? Well, funnily enough, you’re also
able to find a lot of Indian food in Laos. Even in some of the smaller towns we
found Indian food and some of it was incredibly tasty. Our favourite was from
Nisha in the town of Phonsavan.
Simple but tasty Indian food in a basic restaurant.

Sometimes in more remote parts of Laos you really do have to
eat like a local and this is sometimes a little difficult if you don’t know
what it is you’re eating. We generally stuck to fried rice and noodle soup in
these situations as well some awesome rice porridge.

fried rice is everywhere in Laos

one of the better soups in Laos

rice porridge

If all else fails in Laos, it’s almost always possible to
get a baguette with some fresh herbs and vegetables and some meat of your
choice. They’ll fill the hole in your belly and keep you going until you find
something else you might want.

baguette and jam

delicious sandwich in Vientiane

So the food of Laos really is quite diverse. The local food
may not be to everyone’s tastes, but most people will find something to their
liking, especially when in the bigger towns like Luang Prabang.

We tried almost all of those meals and they were all so delicious. The rice porridge simply rocks, great food option for your breakfast. I missed porridge in Asia a lot :). Laos is mostly famous for its sticky and fried rice and amazingly tasty soups :).

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Living a semi-nomadic life since birth. Visited 50+ countries in 5 continents. A retired pastry chef and now shares stories about her journey around the world on www.debbzie.com, instagram and twitter. Feel free to contact me at vdebbz@yahoo.com